


eternity

by jade304



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Afterlife, Gen, sometimes you just want 300 words of cute and that's fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:58:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18728443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jade304/pseuds/jade304
Summary: Ardyn wakes up.





	eternity

Ardyn wakes up.

He’s a little confused at first – the air is much warmer than he’s grown accustomed to over the past ten years, and somewhere above his head he hears birds chirping. He can’t remember the last time he heard a bird sing. He’s laying flat on his back, feeling more relaxed than he has in...well, in a _very_ long time.

He closes his eyes, resting for a while. He feels weightless.

When the sun slowly rises over the horizon, he shields his eyes out of habit; when he doesn’t feel a familiar brush of fabric, he opens them in a panic.

It’s a familiar field; the same one from his youth, the same one that haunts his every dream. He turns around; the branches of the tree are bare, the plants dead, unable to sustain themselves for a decade without daylight. He’s dressed in plain white robes, and he stumbles to his feet.

He’s alone.

He laughs.

He expected as much when he thought about how he may finally die, but it still _stings._ Trapped alone in the place that has haunted both his fondest memories and his worst nightmares for two millennia, and now for all of eternity.

He _laughs._

“Ardyn?”

It isn’t the voice he’d expected to hear, and it sends his heart pounding, He turns around; his brother is hurrying up to him, dressed in a similar suit to the one his many-times-over great grandson once wore. Somnus has an amused little smile on his face, and he leans against the dried up bark of the tree.

“Honestly, I thought it was _me_ who ends up always falling asleep here. You’ll be late.”

A breeze kicks up; the sun breaks the line of the horizon, and for once it doesn’t bring agonizing pain. Ardyn looks up at his brother.

“Late for…?”

Somnus sighs and rolls his eyes. “Your _wedding_ , you fool.” He holds out a hand; Ardyn stares at it for a moment. Somnus waits. Ardyns takes his brother’s hand, and he tugs him up on his feet.

Somnus grins at him; it’s softer than his mind had warped it, kinder than his muddled memories lead him to believe.

“You’ve kept Aera waiting this long, haven’t you?”

 


End file.
